The man “without state” fights for citizenship

Bahison Ravindran says he always believed that he was Indian.

Born from the parents of Sri Lankan refugees in the state of southern Tamil Nadu, the 34-year-old web developer had studied and worked there, and held several identity documents issued by the government, including an Indian passport.

But a rude shock awaited him in April when the police arrested him, saying that his passport was not valid.

The authorities said that he was not a “Indian birth citizen” because his two parents were Sri Lankans who fled in India in 1990 in the middle of the civil war there.

For a long time, anyone born in India qualified for Indian citizenship, but an amendment of 1987 to the law obliged at least one parent to become an Indian citizen for a child born after July 1 of the same year to qualify.

Mr. Ravindran, born in 1991 in 1991, a few months after the arrival of his parents in India, said last week at the High Court of Madras in Chennai that he was not aware of domination and had never hidden his ancestry to the authorities.

He also told court that as soon as he was informed that “citizenship by birth” was not automatic in India, he immediately asked for “citizenship by naturalization”.

But for the moment, he has become “stateless”.

Its unique situation highlights the fate of thousands of Tamil refugees from Sri Lanka in India who fled the island nation during its several decades conflict in the 1980s.

According to the government of Tamil Nadu, more than 90,000 of them live in the state of the South, both in the refugee camps and outside.

Many have chosen the State as a sanctuary due to historical links, linguistic and cultural similarities and geographic proximity with Sri Lanka.

And now there are more than 22,000 people like Mr. Ravindran, who were born in India after 1987 from Sri-Lankan parents.

But decades later, their citizenship status remains in limbo.

Part of the reason is that India is not a signatory to the 1951 UN refugee convention or its 1967 protocol and considers Sri Lankan refugees as illegal migrants.

The law on the modification of citizenship 2019 (CAA), which accelerates the demands of non -Muslim minorities persecuted from the neighboring countries of India, also excludes the Tamils ​​of Sri Lanka.

The status of Sri Lankan Tamils ​​is an emotional subject in the state, various political parties promising to help solve their citizenship problems. But for the most part, it remains a distant dream.

India only granted citizenship to the first Sri Lankan Tamil in 2022 – K Nalini was born a year before the 1987 law which mandated Indian citizenship of at least one parent. Since then, at least 13 additional Tamils ​​have obtained citizenship.

Mr. Ravindran hopes that his case will soon be resumed. He promises an allegiance to India and says that he never intends to return to Sri Lanka.

He recently told the BBC that he had gone to the island nation once in his life – in September 2024 to marry a Sri Lankan woman.

He says his problems started after asking for a new passport to include the name of his spouse this year.

Lawyer Sandesh Saravanan, who represents Mr. Ravindran before the court, told the BBC that he had received a new passport after verification by the police, who was aware of his Sri Lankan parentage.

But the regional registration office for foreigners (FRRO), which oversees the registration of foreigners in India, then pointed out the origin of his parents to the police, he said.

Mr. Ravindran was arrested last month for cheating, counterfeiting and illegally held an Indian passport and detained for 15 days, before being released on bail.

Fearing new punitive measures, he approached the high court of Madras last week, which ordered the authorities to take no coercive measures before the next hearing on October 8.

“In all these years, no one ever told me that I was not Indian,” Ravindran told the BBC.

“When I was told for the first time that I am a” stateless person “, I could not accept it.”

And now, Mr. Ravindran is pinning his hopes in the court to agree with him.

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